Students with LBLDs frequently need more assistance in eleventh and twelfth grades than they did in the previous years. The extra help is needed to manage the increase in pace, volume, and complexity of the upper grades. Often the best way to move forward is to take a couple steps backward and offer even higher levels of support.
You might be thinking, “Shouldn’t my teen be more independent now? Won’t I be fostering a dependency on me that’ll be hard to shake once my child graduates?” That I recommend a continued— and some-times greater— level of support can come as a surprise. There is a fine line between being a helicopter parent and being a helpful parent. A helicopter parent provides help that is not needed, whereas a helpful parent provides help that is needed. By carefully analyzing your teen’s needs and having an open and ongoing conversation with him or her, you will be able to determine what help is needed. By providing that help you are actually promoting independence, because a critical element of independence is knowing what help you need and how to get it.
In order for my collaborative approach of support to be successful with older children, you will need to adjust your mindset about when independence should be achieved. Teens often have rigid ideas about how they want things to be done and how much parents should be involved. By staying by your child’s side and maintaining a healthy rela-tionship, you are showing your child that you are confident that he or she will go off on his or her own once developmentally ready.
Working with Your 11th or 12th Grader 167
I also encourage you to become comfortable with the idea of healthy dependence. Healthy dependence is a manifestation of a successful attachment relationship in which a child recognizes his or her parents aren’t going to abandon him or her in a moment of need. Being indepen-dent requires a number of higher- order skills. As we have learned, rela-tive to their peers, teens with LBLDs need more time and support to acquire these skills. If a young adult does not exhibit independence, it generally means that he or she is simply not developmentally ready for it.
I have seen many teens who struggled well into their twenties ultimately excel in their personal and professional lives. Until that happens, you and your child should both realize that dependence can be healthy and, in fact, a sign of a positive parent- child relationship.
Let’s look at the three areas where school demands frequently exceed the capacities of eleventh- and twelfth- graders with LBLDs: pace, volume, and complexity. The strategies I offer here are the same that I used with Tim and his mom. They will help your family too.
Pace
In the upper grades, the frequency of tests, quizzes, and assignments dramatically increases. Additionally, a teacher’s delivery (the number of words he or she says, the complexity of the words, and the lack of repetition) can often exceed the capabilities of a child with LBLDs.
Furthermore, the demand to produce written or spoken language also increases. For instance, in the upper grades, teachers may expect a student who is called on to quickly organize his or her thoughts and provide a detailed response. It might be that a child with LBLDs is capable of such an answer; however, it’s highly likely that more time will be needed to generate such a response.
Here’s what you can do to support your child with the rigorous pace of upper grades:
• Frequently check the course website, or directly with your child’s teacher, to evaluate the anticipated pace of instruction. Can your teen keep up? It is easy for a teen with an LBLD not to recognize that the fast pace is actually a challenge. Candidly discuss with your child that the pace is considerably quicker
168 Helping Your Child with Language-Based Learning Disabilities
than in previous years. With this awareness, it is more likely that your teen will make an extra effort to be attentive in class and to plan ahead when it comes to project management.
• Create a weekly wall calendar. Indicate for each class not only important due dates and test dates but also start dates for assign-ments and test preparation. Include intermediate dates for com-pleting portions of each assignment, along with the amount of preparation that should be accomplished for an upcoming test.
This strategy will allow you and your child to manage the rapid pace at which important dates come up.
• Create a schedule of all daily activities. Working with your child, discuss strategies that will help him or her accomplish daily objectives.
• Have your teen generate a to- do list. Also include all the things he or she wants to do, such as extracurricalars and hobbies.
Help him or her consider which of these priorities are urgent and which can be postponed. Discuss what desires might need to be put off until there is more time.
• Inevitably your child will miss something the teacher said in class, or an assignment will not be posted on the teacher’s website. In these situations, you need to act fast if your child’s grade has been affected. Have your child reach out to the teacher. See if your child can get an extension or if there’s the possibility of doing an extra credit assignment to make up the missing work.
Volume
In the upper grades, there is a marked increase in the amount of reading, writing, and content. The increase in volume is often not pro-portional to the increase in a child’s ability to handle the work. The assumption that the child should be able to complete this ever- increasing volume of work fails to take into account the child’s LBLDs.
Working with Your 11th or 12th Grader 169
• Have a frank conversation with your teen about the increased volume. Help your teen compare the increased volume of work to what was expected of him or her only a year or two ago.
• Break the work into smaller, more manageable pieces. We often see decreased working memory capacities in children with LBLDs, which means they are less capable of simultaneously managing many different pieces of information. They are more likely to become overwhelmed and frustrated by a task. Take an active role in looking at the content your teen is required to learn and think about ways to break it into chunks.
Complexity
Complexity of schoolwork can mean ideas that are more abstract or information that is novel and unfamiliar. In upper grades, your child will start learning content for which he or she has little to no background information on which to draw. This will put him or her at an enormous disadvantage relative to his or her peers. For example, if your child is assigned to write an essay on the importance of the Supreme Court but has not learned about the three branches of the U.S. government, provide your child with a quick overview of the three branches and the role the Judicial Branch has as one of these branches. Even a brief over-view of background information can be enough to help your child manage the demands of the assignment.
• Encourage clarification from teachers. Because children with LBLDs benefit greatly from one- on- one interaction, advise your teen to seek out teachers to get clarification on challenging content.
• Encourage your teen to have patience. Help your teen under-stand that it is a characteristic, not a flaw, that he or she requires more time than classmates to learn certain things. Just because the rate at which your child processes information might be slower doesn’t mean that ultimately the information won’t get to where it needs to go. Helping a teen understand his or her
170 Helping Your Child with Language-Based Learning Disabilities
learning process allows him or her to be more patient with him- or herself. Propose additional study time be built into the weekly routine to accommodate your teen’s need for more review.
• Investigate additional school resources. Some teens are not aware of the extent to which their schools offer supplementary resources, such as videos, online support services, and other learning aids. You can look into whether these resources are available at your child’s school and then gently guide your teen to utilize them.
By proactively helping your teen manage the increased pace, volume, and complexity of schoolwork in the upper grades, you will teach him or her essential skills that will ultimately allow for higher levels of independence.